The Ballistic BRICK

In 1999, the end of the millennium was coming and much of the world was stressing out over the Y2K bug and the chaos it would bring. You would have thought the end of the world was nigh, yet all turned out well in the end. Around this time Wellington’s Darren Riches was facing a few dilemmas of his own, one of which would also end up just fine, as you will see here. Darren had a 302 Windsor–powered 1948 Ford Pop and it was a great little street car; it just didn’t have the get up and go he wanted — something anyone who had moved from a quick T-bucket to a closed-in car with a lot fewer cubes would understand. To get the performance Darren was after, the Pop would need more than just a repower; the chassis, brakes, etc. would all need doing — hence the dilemma: strip down a perfectly good car that already drove OK or buy one already done?

The decision was made easier when this 1953 Pop came up for sale in New Plymouth. It looked all right and was 402 Chev–powered, already four-barred in the rear, and cost only a few grand more than Darren could get for the current